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Hu says Tibetan unrest threatens PRC sovereignty

Chinese President Hu Jintao took a hard line yesterday on recent unrest in Tibet, saying problems in the region are a purely internal affair that directly threatens Chinese sovereignty.

Hu’s comments to visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd marked his first public utterances on anti-government protests that broke out in Tibet last month.

“Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted Hu as saying, referring to supporters of Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing blames for fomenting the unrest.

“It is a problem either to safeguard national unification or to split the motherland,” Hu told Rudd at a meeting on the sidelines of a regional economic forum in Hainan.

As Tibet’s former Communist Party boss, Hu enforced a harsh crackdown against the last major anti-government protests there in 1989 and has tightened Chinese rule over the Himalayan region since taking over as president in 2003. Under Hu, the party has increased controls over Tibetan Buddhism and increasingly opened the region to travel and migration from other parts of China.

In a later speech Hu stressed China’s belief in “peaceful development” and not intervening in other nations’ affairs.

“China does not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, nor does it try to impose its own will on others. China is committed to peaceful settlement of international disputes,” he said.

Hu’s remarks come a day after China ratcheted up its attacks on overseas critics, blasting a US congressional resolution on Tibet as “crude interference” and labeling a leading Tibetan exile group a terrorist organization.

The accusations follow massive demonstrations by pro-Tibet activists and other groups surrounding the Olympic torch’s passage through San Francisco, London and Paris. The protests have stirred anger from both the government in Beijing and among Chinese citizens.

The latest round of protests began peacefully among Buddhist monks in Lhasa on March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising during which the Dalai Lama fled to India. Four days later the protests turned violent, with hundreds of shops torched and Chinese civilians attacked.

China says 22 people were killed in the riots, many in arson attacks, and more than 1,000 were detained. The Dalai Lama’s India-based government-in-exile says more than 140 people were killed.

Chinese state media lashed out at the Tibetan Youth Congress, accusing it of orchestrating recent protests in a bid to overthrow Chinese rule and sabotage the Beijing Olympics in August.

Such acts “exposed the terrorist nature” of the group, Xinhua said in an article on Friday..
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